The present invention relates to surgical procedures in which small medical instruments, generally needles, are inserted through bone or other tissue to a particular point of interest, with a minimum of disturbance. More specifically, the invention may relate to insertion of a needle through the skull to a point of interest within the brain, such as a lesion or tumor, for aspiration biopsy or decompression.
Representations of parallel planar sections of human tissue, such as horizontal sections taken through the brain, may be made by a computed-tomography X-ray scanner. Various tomographic techniques make possible study of tumors, lesions, or other points of interest.
Surgical procedures performed on the brain at such points of interest may be done by insertion of needles or other slender instruments through a bore in the skull, but these procedures heretofore have been difficult because the surgeon had no simple and direct way to insert the instrument directly to the point of interest. This limitation often dictated use of the alternative technique of a craniotomy, to permit visual inspection of the point of interest.